[The Rationalist]

The beige, grey and black interior scheme isn’t looking sporty at all! It looks very drab to me. It doesn’t look easy to get it blackened from outside places, with the different colour shades used. Hope they come up with an all black interior colour scheme as part of some special edition. I can’t understand this beige obsession given the impractical nature of it in our conditions.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Had a chance to check out the Skoda Slavia at the dealership service centre today. Test drives won't be made available soon, but the car will be on display at the dealership from tomorrow 4 pm onwards.

Style and Ambition variants were available. Short first impressions -

+ No major deal breakers IMHO - unlike my first impression of the Kushaq.
+ Roof liner material quality is now better and although it doesn't feel premium, is not cheap like the Kushaq either. The cheap-looking (subjective) dull grey plastics of the Kushaq has been fixed with beige plastics. IMHO - the cabin looks like a much better place to be, than Kushaq.
+ Plastics feel better quality and better put together than the Kushaq.
+ Digital console looks good with the interior scheme. Looks modern. Analog dials have their charm, but Skoda's implementation was a bit too plain on the Kushaq. Good, because the cabin is otherwise plain and executive looking.
+ Good supportive seats with excellent side bolstering for four.
+ Similar to the Kushaq, the rear seats feel nice for two and have a bucket like effect. The rear armrest is soft and felt nice to rest the hand there.
+ Huge boot, no second thoughts!
+ Nice low seating. Felt lower to the ground than the City, IIRC. However, you might want to check this factor if the car is intended to be used for aged parents.
+ I don't have a problem with the raised stance or the thicker sidewalls. Good Skoda has stuck to realistic sizes for Indian conditions.

What I didn't like:

- Blue looks dull compared to pictures. Same when I took the picture and compared it to the car in front. Somehow, the camera does tend to saturate this blue more.
- Personally, I didn't like the white at all.
- Cabin feels less spacious than the City and (what I remember of the Ciaz). Not sure where the wheelbase went, but the City surely feels more airy and spacious at the front as well as the rear. Don't get me wrong, it isn't a tight cabin like a Verna, but just doesn't feel like best in class dimensions.
- Rear seat is definitely best for two adults using the armrest.
- Plastics still creak upon pressing. (Those who don't know the context, please check the Kushaq review thread for details). Less than the Kushaq, but maybe another rattlebox for the long run. Better to wait and watch.
- The central character line on the dashboard looked good in pics. Not sure of it in person, because the finish somehow looks a bit like a board.
- Overall, the build quality feels at par with the Kushaq and not the Rapid. (Exterior build quality has more heft to it compared to the Asians and Koreans though!)

Sharp looking from the front thanks to the cuts and creases. However, I'm not able to appreciate the cuts on the side profile, in this white coloured car. Rear 3/4th looks a bit bulky too. Would prefer a shade like red or carbon steel.



The interior is functional and doesn't have a wow factor. Digital console is good here IMHO, because the plain dials from the Kushaq could have further made it 'all business and no fun'. However, there is also a clear disconnect between the orange on the cluster and the cardboard colour of the dashboard strip.



Not a fan of this strip in person and it looks like a cardboard type finish up close. Also a closer look at the ac vents -





The boot is humongous without a doubt and the spare mounted subwoofer also helps free up space!



The roof liner is much improved from the cheap ones on the Kushaq, but still not very premium feeling. For example - the quality of material on the MG Astor is a class above.



Legroom is good for two 6 footers, one behind the other. But when you put it into perspective with the class-leading wheelbase, I wonder where it all went. Although not as tight as a Verna, this is no Honda City either. It is a similar story with the width of the rear bench.



The ambition version gets grey fabric seats. Although under plastics, I felt the quality to be much better than the horrible quality seats on the Kushaq low-end and mid variants, when introduced.



Ambition gets plain silver alloys. Looks modern compared to the ageing Rapid, IMHO. Blue looks dull compared to pictures. Same when I took this picture and compared it to the car in front which looked noticeably dull. Somehow, the camera does tend to saturate this blue more.



Overall, looks like a better attempt from Skoda than Kushaq for sure. An excellent C-sedan to choose from - with the 1.5 TSi MT having the potential to be the best drivers car for the money.

But if you are looking for a mini-Octavia or an upgrade from a Rapid, this may not be it. The build (interior) is only near similar to City/Verna levels. Consider it as a modern-day Rapid replacement and it could be worth buying just for those fantastic engines. Even the 1.0 (based on my Kushaq experience) allows a good amount of fun compared to competition cars like the Verna and City.

Either way, looking forward to a TD of that 1.5 TSi MT.

Deal breaker of sorts -

We went to the service centre in a TD Kushaq. Boy that car has aged badly and how!

It was so bad that the better half asked the SA if it was involved in a bad accident and repaired recently - suspension wasn't Euro settled (as if the rear was set at 1.5x the PSI of the car I had originally driven), cabin sounds made a lot of creaks, rattles and thuds - resulting in a cacophony over a set of white painted (not tall) rumble strips. So bad that the SA justified that the spare tyre must be moving around in the boot!

On the plus side - that 1.0 TSi AT can move, despite the small displacement and a power-sapping TC! Left me wondering if the 1.0 would be more than enough to dismiss the current segment champion - the City. With the 1.5 TSi ending up far ahead!

Plastics looked aged and had a lot of scratches that stood out (understandable in a test car), but the dull colour scheme exaggerated all of it! Walking out of that test car - wife was seriously put off, and as for me - I was reminded yet again that this new Skoda "0-IN" quality may not be good for a long term keeper.

Skoda should upgrade the Kushaq soon! As mod Vid6639 rightly mentioned - "After driving the Kushaq seeing the complaints here, it is no longer on my radar as the Skoda no longer represents the same values as someone expects from it."

[skarthiksr]

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

Style and Ambition variants were available. Short first impressions -

By any chance did you check the side and curtain airbag labels? Have they reserved both only for the Style variant as that of Kushaq?

[Venkatesh]

Skoda Slavia 1.0-litre TSI Automatic in Carbon Steel colour





























Link

[Oomph11]

My dad has booked the Sonet HTX D AT and has to wait minimum 4 more months to get it, and on one other hand I’m literally drooling over the Slavia, it looks like a mini-octavia from the exterior, but the concerns are the mileage and price. Keeping my fingers crossed for a VFM proposition.

[sunikkat]

From the pictures it looks good.

Most of us who visit the showroom will tend to compare Slavia with Octavia, which I think is not fair. There is no way Skoda can give Octavia quality, as that is at a much higher price range and a CKD product. We should compare it with its segment - for me if Slavia has addressed the niggles in Kushaq its a big win.

[aditya969]

Surprising to see Skoda's design ethos go on a complete downwards spiral since the past 2 models. I guess their "India specific" design strategy is messing things up. Shocking to see such glaring color combinations (The brown strip). I am sure this is something that would have never passed the internal QC checks back in Czech. I fondly remember the Skoda's of the past to be very docile and understated in their design to bring out that sense of luxury and premiumness.
Slavia is a big product for them given how they have widened the gap thanks to the phenomenally high pricing of the new Octavia. If there are any sedan intenders in the Mid-SUV space, this model needs to tap them for Skoda. Somehow does not look likely, however time will only tell.

[AKSarkar1]

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

Plastics looked aged and had a lot of scratches that stood out (understandable in a test car), but the dull colour scheme exaggerated all of it! Walking out of that test car - wife was seriously put off, and as for me - I was reminded yet again that this new Skoda "0-IN" quality may not be good for a long term keeper.

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts, I feel this may be one of the first close-ups of the production version of the car in such detail.

I totally agree with you, the potency of these cars is yet unknown and not very promising as of now. I don't think I would be parting with my Vento any time soon.

I was really expecting the VW/Skoda "0-IN" quality to be a jump from the current models namely the Vento and Rapid but sadly that doesn't look to be the case. When you are parting with over a million rupees you don't expect your car to have issues like being a rattlebox and no matter what justification Skoda gives, with the tech and resources available today for mass production this is just not acceptable.

[twin-turbo]

Not a fan of those diamond cut alloys, the ones on the middle variants look much more dignified and like the Superb in ways.

[Turbohead]

This has 4th gen Honda City written all over it in terms of comprising quality in the name of cost. Hope these cars last. The current gen cars have aged really well.

[Behemoth]

Originally Posted by sunikkat

From the pictures it looks good.

Most of us who visit the showroom will tend to compare Slavia with Octavia, which I think is not fair. There is no way Skoda can give Octavia quality, as that is at a much higher price range and a CKD product. We should compare it with its segment - for me if Slavia has addressed the niggles in Kushaq its a big win.

I would not say that the Comparison of the Slavia with the Octavia is unfair. We have also owned a Skoda Laura (Gen 2 Octavia) for 9.5 years and also a Skoda Yeti. We had bought the Skoda Laura in 2012 - Ambiente 2.0 TDI Manual at 14.5 Lacs on road in Gurgaon at that time. Over the years, then as generations of the Octavia came in, in 2017 it was still around 20 lacs and then in 2020 whe the latest gen Octavia came in it went almost to 28 lacs and now the latest one is 30.33 lacs (base model). Also, since 2020, they also discontinued the diesel model and now it comes only in petrol version. The kind of price escalation which Skoda did on Octavia was unwarranted at that time and they were unnecessarily trying to peg the Octavia at a 30+ lacs price, while the ideal price of the Octavia should have been around 25 lacs (for current version).
When they started to develop the Kushaq and Slavia, they intended to launch both the cars in the 12-20 lacs range. But to end customers, both of these cars are really very different from the Skoda robust quality that they represented a few years back and held for many many years in India.
In my Opinion, they should not have taken this aggressive cost cutting route to deliver a viable car to the Indian customer.
As an example it you compare the Kushaq and MG Astor side by side - as both cars cost the same, you will feel a huge difference in the interior quality and fit finish of the two cars. VW- Skoda should have at least maintained that level in the Kushaq/ Slavia.
While Skoda may have been able to manage getting larger volumes in India with these cars, they have done it at the expense of diluting their brand status and reliability.

[sunikkat]

Originally Posted by Behemoth

The kind of price escalation which Skoda did on Octavia was unwarranted at that time and they were unnecessarily trying to peg the Octavia at a 30+ lacs price, while the ideal price of the Octavia should have been around 25 lacs (for current version).

Agree, but this has been the case with most of the cars - say for example Compass, Fortuner, 3 series etc. In my opinion all of these are overpriced.

Originally Posted by Behemoth

In my Opinion, they should not have taken this aggressive cost cutting route to deliver a viable car to the Indian customer.

Totally agree, even I am disappointed with that. But the fact is now Skoda has got more reach in the market. If they would have kept the same quality of other Skoda's and increased the price, few of us would have definitely been happy. But it would have also impacted their sales due to higher price.

Originally Posted by Behemoth

As an example it you compare the Kushaq and MG Astor side by side - as both cars cost the same, you will feel a huge difference in the interior quality and fit finish of the two cars. VW- Skoda should have at least maintained that level in the Kushaq/ Slavia.

This is what I would expect too - Slavia atleast maintaining or better the quality of its segment.
In this above example, I would say Astor is an exception. Honestly I dont think Creta, Seltos, Tiguan, Kushaq interior quality / fit and finish justify the price. I cannot even think of spending 20+ lakhs and not having soft touch plastics. Heck in 2010 when I bought Fiesta 1.6s for 8 lakhs OTR it had soft touch plastics all around the dash. Unfortunately that's how the market is moving - all new gizmos and electronics but the actual quality of interiors are declining
Another example, I recently got i20 IVT Asta for 12 lakhs OTR in Bangalore. While the interiors looks premium, its hard plastics all around. Even not happy with overall build quality. Not kidding, but even after using it for 2 months still many a times I cannot close the door properly (it was same with i20 N line that I tried in the showroom too). Compare this with Polo, you can easily find the difference.

Originally Posted by Behemoth

While Skoda may have been able to manage getting larger volumes in India with these cars, they have done it at the expense of diluting their brand status and reliability.

Totally agree and hope Skoda management understand the core and improve their quality and stand for what they are known.

To summarize all I am saying is Octavia is a global product which might not have gone under the knife for aggressive cost cutting, and that is showing in its quality. And the pricing with what they launched in India clearly says, they were not trying for volumes in India (infact it is doing okay - almost same as last gen with only petrol model). On the other hand with Slavia, Skoda is definitely targeting volumes and would try to keep the pricing on par with the segment (fingers crossed). Definitely there will be cost cutting - so we should compare it with the segment than comparing with the interiors / build quality of Octavia. Else we will only be disappointed

[KI07]

Originally Posted by Behemoth

I would not say that the Comparison of the Slavia with the Octavia is unfair. We have also owned a Skoda Laura (Gen 2 Octavia) for 9.5 years and also a Skoda Yeti.

Even we had the Mark-II Laura, and my dad was hurt by the 10 year ban in NCR, we had to let it go in 2019 otherwise would have kept it for full 15 years, irrespective of any repairs... such was the bond, finesse and VFM the Laura had created for us. The Slavia just doesn't look the part if it can replace the Laura for us(emotionally), but the Mark-IV Octavia sure does.

I have respect for VAG for not quitting India and still trying to create a market, but they did it at the cost of one important fundamental according to me, quality

I like the Slavia in white, but I don't like the sloping roofline, if they had matches the Mark-III roofline, it would have been a great looker according to me.

[Venkatesh]

Skoda Slavia price announcement, test-drives and Customer deliveries to commence with the respective launch dates.

Slavia 1.0-litre TSI on 28th February

Slavia 1.5-litre TSI on 3rd March



Link

[bwildrd#1]

Originally Posted by Venkatesh

Skoda Slavia price announcement, test-drives and Customer deliveries to commence with the respective launch dates.

Slavia 1.0-litre TSI on 28th February

Slavia 1.5-litre TSI on 3rd March

Attachment 2270679

Link

Price reveal by the end of February.